Disclaimer: I in no way accept the blame... err claim credit for any material or intellectual property I may or may not have 'borrowed' from legitimate sources. Legitimate as in, has names like Columbia Pictures or Gainax Studios, and has a team of rabid attack lawyers on call.

Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The N2 Mine

Immediately after Third Impact Aka The Tang scene:

Shinji awoke to find a glowing woman with a kind face smiling down at him.

"M . . . mother?" Shinji asked in shock. "Is it really you?"

"No Shinji," the glowing woman replied, "I've taken this form to interact with you and . . ."

"Then could you take another?" Shinji asked, death having made the shy boy a bit more assertive. "I already have enough reasons to need therapy and I'd appreciate it if you'd put some clothes on."

"Alright," the entity agreed, "who's form would you like me to take?"

"Uh . . ." Shinji's eyes crossed for a few moments. "Could you take the form of the TV anchorwoman that talked about the battles?"

"The one that said you were a menace and should be locked up?"

"At least she was honest about her opinion of me," Shinji said with a shrug.

"Alright." The form changed into someone he'd see on TV far too often, complete with microphone and ear piece. "Now, you have been chosen to go back and put right what once went wrong. To save your friends and . . ."

"That sounds like the plot to that American sitcom Asuka was addicted to, Quantum Leak or something like that. Actually," Shinji decided, "I'd rather stay here."

"It's a formless void," the voice deadpanned.

"It's not so bad," Shinji sighed, enjoying the complete lack of any red headed harridans or child abandoning bastards, "thank you for the offer though."

"If you don't go back then you'll be sent to keep your father company for all eternity, with weekend visits from Asuka!" She noticed that the boy was considering it. "And all meals are prepared by Misato," she added sadistically.

Shinji looked around the train station. He was back, back where it all began, back to a world besieged by angels, back to a filthy apartment, back to . . . fuck this. Shinji hopped back on the train, running away had never worked before but maybe this time was different.

In desperation the UN dropped an N2 mine, destroying every living thing in the blast radius except the angel. Shinji never even saw the flash.

IIIIIIIIII

"What the hell happened?" Shinji awoke to the entity's screech. "You were only back for two hours."

"I did what you wanted," Shinji said calmly, "now leave me alone." The boy was giddy at the prospect of being allowed to float, unmolested in his own private limbo.

"Oh no," the entity growled and poked him with her microphone, "it's not going to be that easy. You're going back again, and again, and again, until you get it right."

"No." Shinji was devastated but not surprised, what other afterlife could an angel slayer expect?

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji looked around the train station. He was back, back where it all began, back to a world besieged by angels, back to a filthy apartment, back to . . . fuck this. Never let it be said that the boy did not learn from his mistakes. Shinji ran out of the station and away from what he knew to be a future blast zone. He got a lot further then he expected, but not far enough to avoid being turned into a crispy critter by the blast.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji awoke to see the entity glaring down at him.

"What?" Shinji demanded. "I did better that time."

"By about fifteen minutes," the entity growled, "want a little hint? Why don't you try waiting for Misato. There's not a chance you'll get away from that blast without a car."

"A car hmmm?" Shinji mused.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji arrived at the train station and he hit the ground running. The boy had no idea how to hotwire a car but hey, how hard could it be? He was still working on it when the N2 mine detonated.

IIIIIIIIII

Apparently hotwiring cars is harder then I thought it would be, Shinji thought to himself as he waited for Misato to arrive. The boy had reluctantly concluded that the easiest solution to his problem would be to wait for his slob of a future guardian to show up and to catch a ride with her.

"You must be Shinji," the woman cooed.

"Just shut up and drive," Shinji said sullenly.

"Fine," Misato agreed, thinking he was definitely the commander's son, from his tone and ignoring the fact that she was two hours late picking him up from what was essentially a war zone.

Shinji waited until the N2 mine dropped and Misato was distracted before attempting to escape. I say attempting to because the woman easily caught up with him and showed him how little trouble it was for someone with military training to catch up with an inexperienced civilian.

Shinji was more then a little annoyed by the time he finally strolled into the eva cage. He ignored Ritsuko's little speech in favor of glaring at his father.

"And you will pilot it," Gendo pronounced.

"Eat a dick," Shinji growled back. "And can someone get these handcuffs off me?" Who knew that Misato kept a pair of fur covered cuffs in the glove compartment. Though to give credit where credit is due, they were much more comfortable then the all metal ones they'd used on him in the past.

"Wheel out the spare," Gendo ordered.

"But she's . . ."

"Not dead yet," Gendo interrupted.

"Yes sir."

Shinji watched impassively as they wheeled Rei out. Piss on this for a bag of doughnuts, he still hadn't forgiven the girl for her role in the third impact. Kinda hard not to take it all personally, especially when the glowing entity kept taking her form when she got mad.

"Like I'm supposed to care," Shinji laughed, "just use one of the other clones."

Gendo made a discrete motion to one of the guards, Shinji was quietly taken to an interrogation room. However the boy was so used to pain that more and more extreme methods had to be used to get anything other than a list of Gendo's failings as a father and a human being until, unable to take the stress, his body gave out three hours into the questioning.

IIIIIIIIII

"Back again?" The entity asked cheerfully. "Well, you did last longer this time."

"Fuck you," Shinji snapped. Dying multiple times had done a lot to boost the boy's confidence, or at least to remove any motive to care about other people's feelings.

"That's the spirit!" Trisha's voice cheered him on. "Give 'em hell!"

"I need some time on a computer," Shinji said suddenly.

"There are plenty for you to use back in your life," the entity said cheerfully, "have fun with that."

It took Shinji only a couple of tries before he finally found an unattended terminal with internet access at the train station, but it was another dozen before he found the information he wanted, as he kept getting distracted by porn.

He found the information on how to hotwire a car on Kensuke's home page, strangely enough.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji was cruising down the highway in his new convertible with the wind in his hair and the sun on his back. He'd escaped his fate, he'd managed to find a car, he was speeding away from the N2 blast zone, life was good. Until he ran into a road block.

The boy growled in annoyance as the soldiers escorted him to a small holding area which he knew from long experience was not quite far enough to be out of danger. The boy sighed in resignation as the pressure wave tipped one of the trucks over. It took him fifteen minutes to bleed out, all in all it could have been worse.

It took Shinji another ten tries before he found away around the roadblocks, once again Kensuke's homepage had all the information he needed and another hundred before he decided to give up. It seemed that in the times that he managed to survive both the blast and the angel that NERV would always find him, they were just too well damn funded.

Fuck it, Shinji thought to himself, and fuck them.

IIIIIIIIII

Once again Shinji was back in a train station and once again he was left with nothing to do until his future guardian arrived.

"Hmmm." Shinji frowned, however shall I pass the time until Misato gets here? He pulled out her picture and . . .

Fwap, fwap, fwap, fwap!

For the first time, he realized how considerate the woman was for sending such an inspiring photo.

IIIIIIIIII

A very reluctant Maya approached the commander with the news of his son's current location.

"We've located the third child sir," Maya said nervously, "it's not good."

"Where is he?" Gendo demanded.

"Well . . ."

IIIIIIIIII

"Wahooo," Shinji cheered from the back of the N2 mine he was riding to the apocalypse, "wahooooo." He waved his cowboy hat a couple more times before being vaporized.

It was totally worth the fifty-two resets it took to pull it off, just to see the stunned look on Trisha's face, Shinji thought later.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji smiled as Unit One activated. The bridge crew watched in shock as the Eva drew its progressive knife and thrust it through the window, neatly slicing the Commander in half.

"Well," Shinji said with a grin, "that was fun. How many do you think I can get before they find a way to stop me?"

The answer turned out to be not many as they raised the pressure in the LCL to render him unconscious. Still, killing Gendo was so satisfying that Shinji spent the next five hundred resets doing it again and again.

He probably would have continued doing so for quite a few more resets, but the bored entity had pointed out that there were probably more fun ways to kill Gendo, than just stabbing him with a progressive knife.

IIIIIIIIII

The bridge crew watched in horror as Unit One stepped out of the way and motioned for the angel to pass.

"What are you doing?" Misato screamed.

"Angels are god's messengers," Shinji replied, "it would be a sin to obstruct it."

IIIIIIIIII

A smile bloomed on Shinji's face as he raked in his winnings.

"Wait, kid." One of the men called out.

"What is it?" Shinji asked blandly.

"I gotta know, what did you have?"

"Six high," Shinji replied.

IIIIIIIIII

"Stomp, stomp, stomp," Shinji laughed, "die ants die!"

"Are you finished?" Misato asked, a little unnerved at his behavior. "Cause we really gotta go."

"Fine," Shinji sighed in disappointment, "let's go."

They passed the rest of the ride in silence, Shinji didn't say a word until after Ritsuko gave her spiel about the Eva and Gendo appointed him the pilot.

"Gee," Shinji said, "that thing is kinda big. I bet people look really small from the cockpit . . . small like . . . ants."

Shinji giggled as he hacked the Magi, if this worked it would be so worth the five, almost complete to the end, resets he'd studied computer programming in between battle's to get it right.

Truthfully, he's been a bit surprised that the information on how to do it wasn't on Kensuke's home page.

It was on Maya's.

'Never blog while drunk.' Shinji chuckled to himself, as he recalled how he'd stumbled across the access codes, sandwiched between bad lesbian love poetry and some surprisingly well crafted pornographic fantasies involving the Nerv tech and her sempai.

IIIIIIIIII

Pandemonium was the only word that could be used to describe the scene on the NERV bridge.

"Sir," one of the bridge bunnies called out, "another pattern blue detected . . . and another . . . and another . . . my god there are hundreds of them all over the world."

"Game over man, game over!" one of the other bridge bunnies could be heard yelling in the background, until Misato smacked him, to bring him back to his senses.

"The UN is launching missiles enhanced with N2 mines, as per End Scenario doctrine," another tech informed the room.

"Status of the pattern blues?"

"Uh . . . they just disappeared sir," the nervous bridge bunny said.

"I'm finding traces indicating that the Magi have been hacked, sir."

"What?" Gendo was beside himself. "Notify the UN to stop the missiles!"

"Too late, sir," the tech replied gravely. "The missiles were launched automatically by computer upon receipt of the confirmation codes from the Magi. The surface of the Earth is going to be completely wiped of all life in less than five minutes and there is no way to stop it. The only good news I have is that the combined force of the explosions is going to wipe out the angels as well as humanity. Game over, sir."

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji was still laughing when Section Two found him. His last words after absorbing a hail of gunfire were . . .

"That was soooo worth it," Shinji gasped.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji often wondered if he was the only one affected by all the resets. He was sure that no one was acting the way they would have the first time around, for instance he could have sworn he'd seen Rei roll her eyes at Gendo just the other day. Then again, it was also possible that the first time around had been so long ago that his memories were beginning to fade a bit.

"No matter," Shinji said to himself. The boy hopped out of the Eva and settled down on the beach to enjoy the rays, you'd be surprised at how far you can get on an emergency power supply.

IIIIIIIIII

Obligatory crossover scene!

Shinji was having a nice leisurely stroll around Tokyo III when he was distracted by the sounds of chanting coming from one of the smaller shelters near the single Catholic school for the city.

Finding that they'd left the door to the shelter open, Shinji walked in to find over a dozen Catholic school girls praying aloud.

One of the girl's spotted Shinji and began to smile, before standing up and stripping, much to his surprise.

"Makoto, what are you doing? We should be praying." a blue haired girl protested.

"Yeah, well my prayers have been answered," the stacked brunette replied, "I'm not going to die a virgin!"

"Close enough," a girl with long black haired agreed, which seemed to take all the wind out of the bluentte's sails as she simply shrugged and started stripping.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji was searching for that particular shelter again during the next reset, while he waited for the N2 mine to drop, when he was approached by a painted woman in tight clothing.

"Hey kid," she said in a gravely voice, "how bout a free tumble while we wait for the monster to kill us all?"

"What the hell," Shinji shrugged and agreed, deciding he could look for the shelter next reset.

Later...

'Damn! Who the hell wants a bunch of virgins when you can have a woman

who knows what the hell she's doing?!' Shinji thought to himself, as he collapsed in exhaustion.

"You're not crapping out on me already are you? We're just getting warmed up."

It took another thousand resets before Shinji remembered that there were other things he could do such as . . .

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji and his father glared at each other across the Eva bay.

"Okay," Shinji agreed, "I'll pilot it . . . on one condition."

"What is that?" Gendo demanded.

"That you come down here and tell me face to face," Shinji said firmly, "or else the world can burn for all I care."

"Agreed."

A smile bloomed on Shinji's face as he watched his father get closer and closer.

"Satisfied?" Gendo asked.

"Almost," Shinji replied. The look of shock on the man's face when the gun came out was something that warmed Shinji's heart, the look of pain on Gendo's as the nine millimeter hollow points shredded his lungs was something that Shinji would treasure for all time. The expression of glee didn't leave Shinji's face. Not even when the guards opened fire, and brought an end to the disturbed boy. As he died, one thought reverberated through Shinji's mind. It was totally worth the seventy-two tries it took to learn to take this off Misato without her noticing, I'm gonna have to do this again. And so he did, again and again and at least a thousand more times until shooting became a bit blase.

IIIIIIIIII

Gendo's eyes bulged as Shinji savagely twisted the knife . . . Gendo tried to scream through his crushed throat . . . Gendo did scream as the flames consumed his body . . . Gendo gurgled as Shinji pushed him down, down, down, into the LCL . . .Gendo choked as the nerve gas took effect. No matter how many times Shinji did that one, he still laughed at the idea of using nerve gas in NERV.

Why don't we just say that Shinji spent a lot of time expressing his feelings in a number of violent and fatal ways.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji expertly popped the lock on the beer vending machine. Kensuke's home page was filled with a wealth of useful information and he was going to have to find a way to thank the boy someday.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji bent the angel over one of the buildings and then activated the loudspeakers.

Having been humiliated more then any reasonable being could ever be expected to endure, the angel promptly self destructed.

IIIIIIIIII

To Shinji's shock, he did not awake in an interrogation room . . . not that a straight jacket was much better. With a shrug, the boy calmly dislocated his right shoulder and slithered free. With the angel dead, it was time to go have some fun.

Shinji learned a lot during that first week of freedom. He learned where all the good liqueur stores were, he learned the location of Tokyo IIIs' high class brothel, he learned that there was a green leafy substance that could be smoked, and he learned enough about his father's security detail to stage a kidnapping.

IIIIIIIIII

Ritsuko fed the disk into the computer, then walked back to her seat and settled in. The commander had been missing for almost twelve hours and the staff was starting to get a bit worried . . . well, that's not exactly true since it would be better to say that the staff that hadn't chosen to go to the 'Bastard is Gone' party were starting to get a bit worried.

"Sit down Misato," Ritsuko growled.

"But there's a party and I'm missing it," Misato whined, "no one is missing it except us . . . even the sub-commander got to go."

"It's up to the two of us to find the Commander," Ritsuko said firmly, "we could be his only hope."

"But . . ."

"Sit."

The two women turned to the monitor to see Shinji's smiling face on the screen.

". . . less you give me twenty billion dollars in one yen coins then I will kill the Commander in a horribly painful fashion. You have twelve hours to comply." The camera panned to show an angry Gendo tied to a chair. "Just to show that I'm serious, I'm going to start cutting off appendages in ten hours and sending them to you until you decide to play along. And now a message from our sponsors."

"Don't give him anything," Gendo growled, "he doesn't have the guts to carry out his threat."

"Well," Misato said with a grin, "you heard the Commander. Let's go and . . ."

"Quiet," Ritsuko ordered, "now then. We have twelve hours to . . ." She cut off abruptly as a drunken tech stumbled into the room. "What is it?"

"We got bored of watching this and thought you'd like to watch this too because it's good to watch and all of us have already burned our own copies," he managed to say before passing out.

"That's Amish Jim," Misato whined, "he doesn't drink. We gotta go Rits, the party has to be amazing if he jumped off the wagon."

"Put in the disk," Ritsuko growled.

Once again Gendo came on the screen. This time a ball gag had been fitted into the mouth of the man least likely to win a father of the year award.

"Hello again," Shinji said with a grin, "it's been ten hours and you know what that means don't you?" He held up a pair of pruning sheers. "Snippy, snippy. Let's get to work then."

The next package contained a final disk along with a of full assortment of fingers, toes, and other assorted appendages. The final disk had just one short message from Gendo.

"I was wrong," the pale and shaking man moaned, "he did have the guts."

Shinji learned one more important thing before section two found him and what was left of his 'father.' He learned the numbers of Gendo's private bank accounts along with the locations of the men responsible for making his life a living hell. Flush with a new sense of purpose, Shinji went willingly to his death.

IIIIIIIIII

After close to five thousand resets, Shinji was ready to give up.

No matter how many times, he could never manage to get all of the SEELE bastards. One or two of the sons of bitches always managed to slither away to cause a bit of mischief.

'I can't do it alone and telling anyone about it just ends up with me in an I-love-Me jacket, although the drugs are nice,' he thought to himself, remembering the few times he'd tried to prove to someone what was going on for the hell of it.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji ears ached from the approving roar of the crowd as he faced off against his opponent . . .

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji tried to keep the boredom off his face as they wheeled out Rei.

"Okay," Shinji agreed, "I'll pilot it. But first . . ."

Confused bridge techs tried to shut off the loud seventies era porno music that had suddenly started playing, when Shinji had whispered a command into a comm on the wall, over the intercom while Gendo stared in shock as his son jumped on Rei's gurney and began removing his clothing. Another quick gesture led to another painful interrogation and thus another reset.

Trisha's expression had been completely unreadable, mainly because she had seemed unable to hold a form for longer then half a second, before she had sent Shinji back that time.

IIIIIIIIII

Ritsuko answered the page and was unsurprised to find that her friend Misato was on the other side.

"About time," Ritsuko growled, "well?"

"I found the third child," Misato agreed, "but . . . well . . . maybe it would be best if you saw for yourself."

"How bad could it be?"

"I found him in a brothel," Misato blurted out, "drunk off his ass and under a pile of women. He's having trouble walking, there's no way in hell we're going to be able to use him to pilot an Eva."

"He's going to have to," Ritsuko sighed, "bring him in."

"About that," Misato said nervously, "I still haven't quite got the layout of this place down yet and . . ."

"Where are you?"

The two women carried the blitzed boy into the Eva bay. To Gendo's extreme disappointment, the child was in no shape to understand the cutting remarks Gendo had ready to shatter the boy's already low self esteem. Damn! He had spent the last ten years thinking those up!

"What should we do now?" Misato asked, pushing away one of Shinji's hands from her breasts as he made honking noises.

"Just load him in the tube," Ritsuko ordered, "we can flood the LCL with stimulants."

"But won't that make his hangover ten times worse tomorrow?" Misato said as they stuffed the boy in.

"What's your point?"

"No breast honking for you, you flat-chested bad dye-job," Shinji slurred, before passing out once more.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji awoke with a start wondering where the hell he was. As his vision returned, he became aware of the fact that he was in an Eva and that there was an angel outside. Well, he knew how to handle that sort of thing. 'I think Asuka's wake up call number 5 should do the trick.'

The bridge crew watched in shock as the drunken boy bitch slapped the angel and proceeded to show the apocalyptic being who its daddy was.

"He's a natural," Misato said in satisfaction, "or maybe he's one of those people that drive better when they're drunk, like me."

"This shouldn't be possible," Ritsuko muttered. "It's like he's a veteran pilot rather then an untrained boy."

The angel was destroyed and the recovery team found Shinji happily sleeping off his binge. They took him to the infirmary and dumped him in one of the unused beds while their superiors debated the third's living arrangements.

IIIIIIIIII

Gendo did his best to summon up his inner bastard as he prepared to share his news with the rest of the senior staff.

"One of you three is going to have to supervise the third child," Gendo said coldly. This doesn't effect the scenario, Gendo thought to himself, his drunkenness and whoremongering were both major character flaws that could be exploited.

"I think Misato would be the best choice," Ritsuko said quickly, not wanting to have to take care of a teenage drunk or have her assistant Maya subjected to him.

"I agree," Fuyutsuki agreed. Eager to dodge that bullet. "Major Katsuragi would be a perfect guardian."

"But he's always talking about beer and hookers," Misato protested. "You didn't have to listen to him on the drive here . . . not to mention the fact that I found him drunk off his ass in a brothel so I know he isn't just all talk."

"Well," Fuyutsuki said quickly, "you like beer."

"And you're so slutty that you may as well be a hooker," Ritsuko added, "you're perfect for each other." OK, maybe she was a little jealous that Shinji had dismissed her breasts as insignificant and insulted her dye-job. 'Just because I don't have udders...'

"That's a pretty bad accusation coming from ol'gang bang Ritsu," Misato retorted, "least I never had a line at my door."

"Least I never took more then two at once," Ritsuko shot back, "not like you little Miss air tight."

"Ladies please," Gendo regained control of the meeting, making a mental note to get a VD test and to avoid ol'gang bang Akagi in the future.

"Major Katsuragi will take the third child and Doctor Akagi will move into the apartment next door to provide on call support."

And it'll give him an excuse to get the bottle blond away while he waited for the results of the aforementioned test.

"Any questions?"

He looked around the table with an expression that promised pain for anyone foolish enough to say anything. "Good, dismissed."

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji did his best to ignore the teacher. All he wanted to do was put his head on his desk, wait for the room to stop spinning, and to pray for death or the end of his headache.

"Are you the . . ."

"One more word and I'll crack your skull," Shinji growled. He didn't care how useful the boy's website was, the boy needed to learn not to have an annoying high pitched voice around people with Hangovers.

Kensuke nodded fearfully before stumbling back to Toji.

"Well?" the other boy demanded.

"He told me to shut up before I could ask him," Kensuke replied, "what should we do?"

"You should cease and desist your inquiry," Rei said in a dull tone, "NERV cannot confirm or deny that pilot Ikari is or is not the pilot of Unit one."

"Thanks Ayanami," Kensuke said in shock, "you're a big help."

"I do not know what you mean," Rei said tonelessly, but with a hint of vindictiveness in her eyes.

IIIIIIIIII

True to form, Toji found Shinji after class and began ranting about his sister. Let's just say that Shinji was not amused.

Shinji looked at the boy with bloodshot eyes, he remembered the bastard . . . Tacky or something. Now, all he needed to do was explain to Tacky why it was polite to use his indoor voice around people with

severe hangovers.

Checking his pockets, he discovered he still had a fifth of vodka and a handkerchief, as well as a bag of a green leafy substance and a lighter.

Watching Tacky run around screaming was a bit of a bother, but Shinji was sure he'd quiet down quicker this way. 'Should I have gotten him stoned? Nah, Molatov Cocktails solve problems, weed just delays them.'

With a shrug, Shinji turned and walked away. If he remembered correctly, there was a place to buy Absinthe somewhere around . . . .

IIIIIIIIII

Toru had been a bartender for almost fifty years and in that time he'd thought he'd seen it all. He'd even seen a purple haired woman get into a drinking contest with a penguin, and lose. What he'd never seen was an adolescent boy wander in, drink enough absinthe to kill a platoon of marines, and then stumble out under his own power.

After a series of wacky side trips, Shinji eventually made his way back to Misato's apartment. Before going to bed, he became uncomfortably aware of the pressure in his bladder.

"Now wer's dat to'let?" Shinji muttered to himself.

IIIIIIIIII

Misato awoke to a very angry penguin, a very wet and angry penguin.

"WARK, WARK WARK WARK, WARK WARK."

"Pen Pen?" Misato groaned, her nose twitched as it took in the smell. "Did you wet the fridge again? God, ever since Shinji started living with us."

Pen Pen's glare deepened.

"Well I'm not cleaning it up this time," the woman said stubbornly, "you can damn well do it yourself."

"Wark," Pen Pen sighed.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji was rudely awakened my Misato at the crack of noon the next day.

"Get up you drunk," Misato screamed, "angel attack."

"Just let me drain the ol' lizard first," Shinji mumbled.

"No time," Misato yelled. She hustled the boy into her car and drove to the nearest access point. Ritsuko met them in front of the Eva cage.

Shinji found himself at his father's bedside. It hadn't been intentional, even after all the time he'd spent at NERV he still lost his way on occasion.

An evil grin appeared on his face as he read the man's medical file.

It didn't look like there was any chance that Gendo would be giving Shinji any brothers or sisters in this reset. The bottle blond would be so disappointed when she found out that Gendo was no longer fully 'functional.'

A frown appeared on Shinji's face as he looked over the treatment plan the doctors had prescribed, this wouldn't do . . . not at all.

Several of the previous resets had allowed Shinji to develop passable skills in forgery. His good deed for the day done, Shinji wondered off to find that bar he'd been thinking about earlier.

IIIIIIIIII

Shortly after Shinji left the room, two Doctors came in to take a look at Gendo's condition.

"Are you sure it's a good idea Doctor McCoy?" the intern asked nervously.

"What does the order say?" Doctor McCoy demanded.

"It says that we are to remove two thirds of his intestines, surviving extremities, that we are to wire his jaw shut, and that he is to be taken off morphine and all other pain medication. But . . ."

"And is that or is that not in my hand writing?" the Doctor interrupted.

"It is sir but . . ."

"But while I don't remember ordering those procedures, I'm sure that I had a good reason at the time."

"But what if it's a forgery sir?"

"Damn it Jim, I'm a Doctor not a expert on handwriting analysis."

"Sorry sir," Jim said contritely.

"I'm not sure why, but it felt really good when you apologized . . . odd that."

IIIIIIIIII

Chaos would have been a mild term for the NERV operations center. They'd detected another angel attack, they'd sounded the alert, what they hadn't done was launch the pilots, and the reason for that was . . .

"What do you mean we can't find the third child?" Misato demanded. "And how can you loose an EVA?"

"Security tapes show the third child climbing into it and launching it ma'am," one of the Section Two agents said helpfully, "so it's likely that when we find one, we'll find the other."

"How did a fourteen year old boy, probably drunk off his ass, in a machine the size of a building, manage to sneak past security?" Misato demanded.

"He discovered a hole in our security, mam."

"That must be some hole," she growled.

"Coverage is practically nonexistent between 0600 and 0630. It's a scheduling conflict that we haven't been able to solve so far."

-Flashback-

"Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?" the TV in the Section Two lounge blared.

"Sponge Bob Square Pants!" came the answering chant from the massed agents.

-End Flashback-

"Get out of my operations center," Misato said in a low dangerous voice.

"I think I've found his trail ma'am," one of the techs called out.

"Did someone sight the Eva?" Misato asked.

"No ma'am," the tech replied, "someone broke into a distillery and made off with several thousand gallons of pure grain alcohol."

"Fine." She stormed over to Shinji. "Play your cards right and I might be willing to show you how a real pilot . . ."

"Is this a come on?" Shinji stared at the girl through bloodshot eyes. "How much do you charge?"

"What?" Asuka asked in shock.

"Better not be much," Shinji continued, "I mean . . . I like redheads and everything but you're gonna have to have a real low price if you want me to overlook the fact that you're built like a fourteen year old boy."

Kaji's eyebrows shot up in shock, this was gonna be good.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji tried to get along, really he did, but for some reason the redhead just couldn't understand the concept of shutting the hell up and not being such a bitch. Fuck it, the boy thought to himself, perhaps a bit of wall to wall counseling is in order.

"My thoughts exactly," Asuka said with a smirk. She was eager to show the damned third who the better pilot was.

'It's funny,' Shinji thought as he squared off with Asuka, 'she's go years of unarmed combat training, she's in better physical shape, she's got a mean streak a mile wide, and there's still not a chance in hell that she'll win this fight.'

"Ready?" Shinji asked cheerfully.

"To put you in your place," Asuka agreed.

The girl started things off with a text book jab to Shinji's face and the boy's head rocked back as his nose broke.

"I . . ." Asuka's eyes widened in shock at the blood.

Shinji just smiled.

IIIIIIIIII

Misato saw Shinji a few minutes later. The boy had a black eye and blood was dripping out his nose.

"What in the hell happened to you?" Misato demanded.

"Asuka and I were just having a little discussion about what the pecking order would be," Shinji explained cheerfully. "I think I persuaded her to come around to my way of thinking."

Misato's eyes widened as she realized what he meant. "But she's had years of combat training, how did you . . ." her voice trailed off as she considered the perverted lush she lived with.

IIIIIIIIII

Back in the ships' hold, two of her crewmen were discussing the results of Shinji's little tussle with Asuka.

"So," one of the crewmen began, "how do you think he managed to tape her to the ceiling?"

"MMMMPH," Asuka tried to scream through her gag, worried about how much hair and skin she was going to lose when they peeled all the duct tape off her naked body.

The crewmen got the trembling redhead down and wrapped a blanket around her to ward off the cold.

"Yer boss wants a word with yeh," one of the crewmen explained as they led the girl to Misato.

"What in the hell happened?" Misato demanded, having known from the pilots' files that a violent confrontation between the two was inevitable, but baffled by the outcome. "You should have won that fight easily. Shinji's has no combat training at all."

"I . . . he wouldn't stay down," the redhead replied, "I broke his nose and he smiled. I'm pretty sure I felt one of his ribs give out and he didn't even blink."

The two looked over at where Shinji was currently using Asuka's Eva Unit Two, one of the ship's radio antennas, and Kaji to try and lure the angel to the surface.

"What kind of monster is he?" the German pilot demanded.

Misato's answer was lost in the deafening roar of the angel, as it leapt from the water, jaws wide, attempting to swallow Kaji and the briefcase he had handcuffed to his left wrist.

Unit 02 simply twitched the antenna to the side and launched a prong knife into the angel's core.

"Whoa!"

"I thought the battles with those monsters were huge things causing massive amounts of damage?" a crewman questioned, as the angel's lifeless body sank into the depth of the ocean.

"That's because most of them are fought on land inside the city," Misato answered, "in the water there isn't that much to destroy."

'Which is probably why he simply killed it rather than playing with it,' she finished silently.

Everyone watched as Shinji continued using the water logged man as bait to lure some sharks in close, so he could feed them to the Eva like they were fish sticks.

IIIIIIIIII

Misato stormed into the vice commander's office the minute she got back to the Geofront.

"You were supposed to supply us with booze," Misato shrieked.

"You know how bureaucracy is," the vice commander said with a shrug, "it'll get there eventually."

"It was supposed to arrive before we did," Misato growled.

"How long have you been in the military again?"

"Do you know how hard Shinji is to deal with when he's dry?" Misato demanded. "Do you know how hard it is to take when I'm dry?"

"Where is Shinji now?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" Misato asked. "Little drunk is probably in a low class whore house or something."

IIIIIIIIII

In fact, Shinji was not in a low class whore house . . . or any type of whore house at all. What he was doing was paying his 'father' a visit.

Shinji frowned down at his father, he didn't remember ordering breast implants. On the other hand, he scratched his chin in thought, there were a lot of blank spots in his memory. Maybe he did.

"Fuck it," Shinji muttered to himself, "maybe the old man ordered it himself . . . be a shame not to help things along a bit." A smile bloomed on the boy's face as he wrote a few more suggestions on his father's chart. "And that is that."

Rei Ayanami stopped by later, as she believed her role as 'dutiful pilot' required stopping by at least once a day to monitor the commander's condition, and noticed the changes someone had made to his chart. Checking the hand writing she noted the likely possibility that the changes were made by Shinji.

Deciding that since Shinji was the sole remaining relative to the commander, and was the one most likely to know his wishes, Shinji's decisions were the correct ones to follow, besides the way he stared at her naked body when she was floating in the tube was frankly more than a little disturbing.

She made a mental note to see about the possibility of transferring the commander into one of the soulless clone bodies of his wife, preferably one of the ones he'd 'played' with.

He had stated a wish to be reunited with his wife and apparently wished to become female, this was clearly the next logical step.

IIIIIIIIII

Asuka stared dumbly at her guardian for a few moments before she processed the man's statement.

"WHAT?!" Asuka screamed. "Why the hell do I have to stay with him?"

"I'm flying back to Germany so Misato's going to be your new guardian," Kaji replied with a strained smile.

There was no way he was going to stay on the same continent as 'The Fisherman' as the sailors had nicknamed Shinji. "Have fun."

"But . . . him," Asuka protested weakly.

"Good luck with that," Kaji said over his shoulder. It hadn't been easy to get tickets for the first flight back, but he'd pulled a few strings.

"Kaaaajiiiiii," Asuka whined. "Damn it." She wasn't nearly as unhappy to be sharing quarters with the third child as she pretended to be, there was just something about Shinji's forceful personality that really appealed to Asuka's baser instincts and it was nice to smell a man wearing something other than Old Spice for once in her life.

IIIIIIIIII

Misato was in her element, she was in tactical command, an angel was approaching, and the might of humanity was about to be unleashed.

"Get Shinji and prepare to launch Eva Unit One," Misato ordered.

"No can do ma'am," one of the techs sighed, "afraid the third child has been arrested and . . ."

"Then have Section Two go get him," Misato growled. What had the dirty little drunk done now?

"And he promptly escaped," the tech continued, "the police report that he mentioned something about making his living in the Los Angeles underground as a solder of fortune."

"Do we know where he is now?"

"High speed chase in a stolen police cruiser ma'am."

"Send Asuka and Rei then," Misato ordered. She tried to resist asking, really she did, but she had to know in the end. "What was he charged with?"

"Public urination, destruction of property, grand theft auto, manufacturing and detonating an explosive device within city limits, solicitation, trespassing, jaywalking, public drunkenness, minor in possession, assault with intent, vagrancy, indecent exposure, contributing to the delinquency of a . . ."

"We get the picture," Misato interrupted, "tell the local PD to back off and have Section Two pick him up when he tires himself out."

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji was driving down the road in a stolen police car at twice the speed limit with the wind in his hair and a fifth of cheap scotch in his gut.

"Bwahahahaha," he laughed, "you'll never take me alive."

He glanced down at the on board GPS, 'this seemed like a good stopping point,' Shinji thought to himself. His eyes darted over to the fuel gauge confirming that yes, he had just enough gasoline to make things work.

The men in the convoy of police cars watched in shock as the boy they were pursuing made a text book bootlegger's turn and sped by in the adjoining lane.

Also watching was a stunned reporter in the overhead channel six news copter.

"Please tell me you got that," Trisha begged.

"I got it," the camera man said with a grin, "who is that guy anyway?"

"I don't know, but he's got one hell of a pair of balls on him," the reporter said admiringly, unconsciously licking her lips.

IIIIIIIIII

To sum things up, Misato was not happy with the performance of her two sober and non felonious pilots.

"You mind telling me just what the hell happened out there?" Misato growled.

"And no excused either," the Chief continued, "I am going to speak and you are going to listen with your mouth shut. Do you understand or do I have to relieve you and find someone who does?"

"I understand, sir," the Lieutenant said reluctantly.

"And another thing, you and your men . . ." the Chief cut off when he noticed that the man's attention was no longer focused on his lecture. "What is it?"

Wordlessly, the man just pointed at the Chief's helicopter which had just taken off and was rapidly gaining altitude.

"Somebody just stole my helicopter?" the Chief mumbled in astonishment.

"Hit the deck," one of the other officers screamed as Shinji rewrote the book on what it was possible to do in a helicopter.

IIIIIIIIII

Rei was a very unhappy clone. She had been dressed in an outfit that even she thought was horrid, she had been forced to share close contact with Asuka who had a rather abrasive personality, and to top it all off . . .

In his defense, no sane man would do a barrel roll at tree top level . . . hell, most insane men wouldn't have tried it.

Despite the Pilot's pessimistic assessment, they managed to keep the police helicopter in sight until the maniac behind the stick lost them by flying into a commuter tunnel.

"My god," the pilot gasped, "he's not human."

"The man is a god," the cameraman agreed.

IIIIIIIIII

Kensuke Aida was having the worst day of his life.

The teacher was droning, the girls were wearing long skirts, after the rumor had gotten out that Shinji liked long skirts the female population had quickly changed styles, and it had been the most disappointing Eva battle ever.

'I mean, what kind of clowns did they have driving those things? It would have been a hundred times better, and more destructive, if Shinji had been piloting,' he thought to himself.

Little did he know, that he was about to see the coolest thing ever.

The military mad otaku glanced out the window and his eyes became glued to the scene outside.

"Hey class rep," the boy said calmly.

"What is it, Aida."

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"I don't know," the girl replied, "did you just see Ikari jump out of a moving helicopter in mid barrel roll, narrowly avoid the rotors, and deploy a parachute?"

"Yeah," the boy agreed, "I was afraid that the pills I found on Ikari's desk were making me see things again."

"Why in the hell would you ingest anything you found on Ikari's desk?" Hikari demanded. "Are you nuts?"

"I was hoping it would make me as manly as he is," Kensuke replied, "but all it did was turn everybody into lizard people that wanted to eat my scrotum."

"Oh." Which neatly explained why the boy had been cowering under his desk and urinating on himself the day before. "Kensuke, there's nothing you can do to make yourself even a fraction as manly as Ikari is," she explained gently. Someone had to tell him, and as the class rep it was her duty to crush the dreams of her classmates.

They watched as Shinji crashed through the window and released his chute. In the background, the pilotless helicopter completed another barrel roll before crashing into a building, causing untold millions in damage.

"I guess not," the boy agreed mournfully.

"Now where did I leave that," Shinji mumbled to himself as he shoved the teacher out of the way and began going through the man's desk, "here it is."

He came up with a bottle of mysterious and presumably alcoholic liquid. "And now I can start my day."

The Chief was turning redder and redder as the two Section Two agents explained the facts of life.

"So this scum bag steals my helicopter and I can't even write him a damned ticket?" he bellowed.

"That is correct," the Man in Black agreed.

"What in the hell . . . wait, does that mean that he was one of you guys?"

"He is an employee of NERV," one of the agents agreed cautiously.

"Well, I guess that's alright then."

"Huh?"

"No shame in being beaten by some hot shot secret agent," the Chief said happily, "no shame at all."

"How would you feel if we told you it was a teenaged boy?"

"Depends," the Chief replied, "is it the one that pilots giant robots and destroys Tokyo III on a weekly basis?"

Both agents just stared at the man in shock, horrified that at the massive and blatant security breach.

The Chief laughed. "Damn, wait till the boys hear about this. No shame in losing to him either."

"That's . . . er . . . how'd you know about him?"

"The boys like to monitor the website," the Chief said absently, "thank you for your time boys."

The two Section Two agents watched the Chief turn and walk away. After a few moments of silence, one of them turned to the other.

"Website?"

"Not our problem," the second agent replied, "wanna go get some doughnuts?" Proving that cops are cops no mater how secretive their organization.

IIIIIIIIII

Asuka and Rei got to school late that day after a night spent doing one humiliating synchronized thing after another. Supposedly this was to increase their teamwork so that they'd be able to defeat the angel in the event that Shinji's bender prevented their star pilot from taking care of the creature himself.

Privately, both girls harbored the thought that it was all for the amusement of their superior officer. Misato's constant giggling certainly pointed in that direction, but then her behavior had never been what anyone would have considered professional, so there was an outside chance that this actually was necessary training.

"Shinji came?" Asuka squeaked. She needed to fix her hair, put on some makeup, change her outfit, oh god.

"Looks like you need a bit of help," Hikari said slyly. "Wouldn't want to look anything but your best for when Shinji wakes up would you."

"What do you want in trade?" Asuka demanded.

"You live with him don't you?" Hikari asked eagerly. "Tell us what it's like."

The girls all clustered around Asuka to get the inside track on their favorite classmate.

Two of the boys watched the congregation of girls gather around Asuka's desk.

"What do you think they're talking about?" one of the boys asked.

A cascade of giggling caused the two boys to look over at the group.

One of the girls held her hands up about six inches apart prompting a smug looking Asuka to hold up her own hands and considerably widen the distance, this caused the rest of the girls' eyes to glaze over while trickles of drool escaped the corners of their mouths.

"I dunno, chocolate?"

"Some sort of food anyway," the first boy agreed.

"I think you are right. I think I just heard one of them mention something about sausage," chimed in a third boy.

IIIIIIIIII

Asuka was furious. She'd been looking forward to her class trip to Okinawa for days only to be told that she wasn't permitted to go.

"This isn't fair," Asuka squealed.

"Life isn't fair," Misato replied.

"But . . . but I wanna go to Okinawa," Asuka whined, "why do I have to stay here and be on the lookout for those stupid angels."

"Because you and Rei are our only reliable pilots," Misato replied in another voice.

"Are you saying that Shinji isn't reliable?"

"I'm saying that it's possible that Shinji has stolen a jet and flown to Monte Carlo for the weekend," Misato admitted, "and that you and Rei are much easier to control."

Shinji choose that moment to walk into the apartment. Causing Asuka to lower her voice in deference to his perpetual hangover and distracting her from her rant.

IIIIIIIIII

Luckily for Asuka's vacation plans, the Angel on the tropical island choose that moment to make itself knows to the 'sophisticated' NERV sensors.

IIIIIIIIII

Misato pulled her vibrating phone out of a rather personal place and checked her latest text message.

"Looks like it's your lucky day Asuka," Misato said blandly, "the next angel attack is on a tropical island and if we get things resolved quickly enough . . ."

"We get to spend some time in the resort," Asuka squealed. Her eyes widened in horror. "Sorry, Shinji."

Pen Pen walked down the isle of the local home improvement store until he reached the locksmithing section.

"Wark."

"May I help you, sir?" the sales girl asked.

"Wark wark."

"I'm afraid we don't have any locks that can be attached to freezer doors that make it impossible to open them from the outside without a key while still making it possible to open them from the inside without a key."

"Wa . . . wark," Pen Pen said in defeat.

"But if price is no object, then why don't you take a look at our spacious line of walk in freezers."

"Wark?" Pen Pen asked hopefully.

"I don't see why we couldn't install a furo."

IIIIIIIIII

"Shinji's the one that has experience fishing," Asuka pointed out.

"We'd have to get his bait flown in from Germany," Misato noted, "and I'm not sure we have enough time to waste."

"There are two ways to go fishing," Shinji explained, "you can use conventional equipment, like I did when we went to pick up Asuka."

His grin widened. "Or you can do it the fun way."

"The fun way?" Misato's eyes widened in Horror when she realized that what she'd said could be construed as a request to find out what Shinji meant. "Shinji wai . . ."

"Dupont spinner." EVA Unit One dropped a couple large objects into the volcano.

"HIT THE DECK," Misato screamed.

"Or in this case..." EVA Unit One calmly walked away from the volcano.

BOOOOOOOOM

"An N2 spinner."

Lava spewed out of the volcano and poured down the side of the mountain and towards the sea.

Rei walked up to Shinji's desk and, to the amazement of her classmates, poked the sleeping child with a stick.

"What is it?" Shinji growled.

"There is a power outage and an angel has just been sighted," Rei explained.

"So?"

"So I will trade you a case of twenty year old scotch if you lead us through the corridors of NERV to our Evas and aid us in the destruction of the angel."

"It's gonna take more then a case for me to do that," Shini countered, "how about a case of scotch and I forget you woke me up?"

"How much will it take for you to aid us in this endeavor?" Rei asked in a monotone.

"Twenty five cases."

"That is not possible," Rei said flatly, "there are only twenty cases in the NERV inventory."

"Then I guess you're outta luck then."

"There are however several other types of spirits," Rei continued. "How about twenty cases of scotch, five of bourbon, three of gin, and two of Soju?"

"Deal," Shinji agreed.

AN: Was going to post this as one big mega chapter, decided not to for now and I wanted to get something up on the second anyway since this fic was inspired by a great movie. As always a lot of thanks should be heaped on dogbertcarroll for the massive amounts of improvement he applied to my first draft.

The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.